The life and public services of Abraham Lincoln ... together with his state papers, including his speeches, addresses, messages, letters, and proclamations, and the closing scenes connected with his life and death. By Henry J. Raymond. To which are added anecdotes and personal reminiscences of President Lincoln, by Frank B. Carpenter.

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THE LIFE, PUBLIC SERVICES, AND

action, while in no instance did he withhold from him any
aid which it was in the power of the Government to give.
Nothing can show more clearly the disposition of the
President to sustain him to the utmost, and to protect him
from the rapidly rising tide of public censure and discontent with his ruinous and inexplicable delays, than the
following remarks made by him at a war meeting held at
Washington on the 6th of August, after the retreat to the
James River, and just before the withdrawal of the army
from the Peninsula:FALLOW-CITIZBNS:-I believe there is no precedent for my appearing
before you on this occasion, but it is also true that there is no precedent
for your being here yourselves, and I offer, in justification of myself and
of you, that, upon examination, I have found nothing in the Constitution
against it. I, however, have an impression that there are younger gentlemen who will entertain you better, and better address your understanding
than I will or could, and therefore I propose but to detain you a moment
longer.
I am very little inclined on any occasion to say any thing unless I hope
to produce some good by it. The only thing I think of just now not
likely to be better said by some one else, is a matter in which we have
heard some other persons blamed for what I did myself. There las been
a very wide-spread attempt to have a quarrel between General McClellan
and tile Secretary of War. Now, I occupy a position that enables me to
observe, tlat these two gentlemen are not nearly so deep in the quarrel as
soule pretending to be their friends. General McClellan's attitude is such
that, in the very selfishness of his nature, he cannot but wish to be suc(cessful, and I hope he will-and the Secretary of War is in precisely the
same situation. If the military commanders in the field cannot be successfil, not only the Secretary of War, but myself, for the time being the
master of them both, cannot but be failures. I know General McClellan
wishes to be successful, and I know he does not wish it any more than the
Secretary of War for him, and both of them together no more than I wisl
it. Sometimes we have a dispute about how many men General McClellan has had, and those who would disparage him say that he has had a
very large number, and those who would disparage the Secretary of War
insist that General McClellan has had a very small number. The basis
for this is, there is always a wide difference, and on this occasion, perhaps
a wider one than usual, between the grand total on McClellan's rolls and
tile men actually fit for duty; and those who would disparage him talk of the
grand total on paper, and those who would disparage the Secretary of War
talk of those at present fit for duty. General McClellan has sometimes
asked for things that the Secretary of War did not give him. General